


Check and Checkmate

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, F/F, Genderswap, Humor, Matchmaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 09:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roza plays a dangerous game and loses.  Fast.  <i>Embarrassingly</i> fast.</p>
<p>[Quasi-spoilers for Brotherhood.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Check and Checkmate

**Author's Note:**

> In "celebration" of October 3rd, here is a thing that is basically the Genderswap Fic of Doom, minus the plot, plus an Al who thinks Roza is worth the time of day. …somebody nag me to finish that stupid fic.
> 
> All you really need to know it's that it's a post-Brotherhood AU with pretty much all the characters genderflipped. ^^;

Roza is in the process of pulling her hair out to distract herself from the urge to scream at the top of her lungs when there’s a knock at the door.

“Come in,” she says, and she rather diplomatically does not add _at high risk of immediate incineration_.

Rian takes half a step inside.  “Allison Elric for you, sir.”

Oh, Lord.  What did she do to deserve a guilt-trip now?  If this is something about stray kitten legislation, Roza is going to burn Central Headquarters to the _ground_.

Bless his bounteous heart, Rian reads all of that on her face instantaneously and offers an extremely subtle half-shrug.  In Rian Hawkeye Sign Language, that means _She doesn’t seem upset, and if I hear any shouting, I’ll rescue one or both of you_.

Roza takes a deep breath.  “Send her in.”

Rian nods, disappears, and ushers in a golden-haired waif in a lavender sundress.  The door shuts again behind Allison—who, despite being just two months out of the hospital, despite still stumbling on her newly-recovered legs, is already a _staggering_ beauty.

She is also holding a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. She shuffles forward and sets it down on Roza’s desk.

“Four sugars and a teaspoon of cream,” Allison says.  The sheer brightness of her smile very briefly makes Roza long for blindness.  “I understand that’s how you take it?”

“You understand correctly,” Roza says slowly, watching Allison’s expression instead of the twirl of steam.  “I’m going to refrain from asking how you acquired that particular piece of intelligence.”

Allison just beams a little brighter.  “It’s not poisoned,” she says.  “Take a sip!”

Roza continues to monitor Allison’s innocent visage as she cautiously obliges.  The olive-tinged eyes are _too_ large in her face; most likely she’ll grow into her own features, but at the moment her burgeoning attractiveness is slightly eerie.

The coffee is perfect.  _Too_ perfect, perhaps.

“That’s quite nice,” Roza says slowly.  “Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” Allison says cheerfully.  “Now you’re on a coffee break, so we can have a personal conversation, don’t you think?”

Oh, shit.

“Ah,” Roza says.  “Well—”

Allison’s skinny arm snaps out and hauls a chair closer to Roza’s desk.  She plops down into it and folds her hands in her lap.

Roza clutches the coffee and braces herself for a tirade about domesticated pet registries, shelter funding, better training for officers of animal control—

“You should date my sister,” Allison says.

Roza stares.

Staring elucidates nothing.

“I beg your pardon?” Roza says.

“I think you should go out with Ed,” Allison says.  “She doesn’t read the papers, but I’ve been trying to keep up with current events during my convalescence, so I saw the article that outed you—rather gracelessly, for my money.”

Roza’s mouth is slightly dry.  She sips at the coffee, but it doesn’t taste like much of anything anymore.

“Mine, too,” she says when she manages to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth.  “But I fail to see what that has to do with me romancing your s—”

“She talks about you constantly,” Allison says.  “I can only bear hearing every permutation of how you’ve ‘ruined her life’ so many times, but I imagine that wanting to talk about _you_ might give the two of you something in common.”

“If I’m such an insufferable egotist,” Roza says, “exactly why are you encouraging me to court your favorite person on the planet?”

Allison heaves a long-suffering sigh that makes her whole frame tremble.  “In increasingly frequent moments of madness, I honestly believe that it will be good for both of you.”

Roza tries to rein this careening conversation in at least a _little_.  “I didn’t even know Edwina was inclined towards women.”

“I’m not sure she is,” Allison says.  “But I’d stake my savings that she’s inclined to _you_.”

All of Roza’s internal organs are staging an extremely uncomfortable mutiny. Her churning stomach and spinning head are the worst offenders, but the rush of blood to her cheeks and the throb of desire in h—

Well.

She looks away from Allison’s unwavering amber eyes and watches the last few wisps of steam curl upward from the coffee cup. She can’t get ahead of herself. She can’t presume—not with Ed; never with Ed. Ed defies prediction on principle.

She clears her throat. “I don’t think that’s an adequate basis for action.”

“What do you have to lose?” Allison asks, mercilessly calm.

_My dignity,_ Roza could say. _My pride. My feeble, weak-winged hopes; the quiet dreams; the careful what-ifs never uttered louder than a whisper, lest the whole world conspire to tear them down._

“I don’t really have time for a relationship,” Roza says.

“Bullshit,” Al says crisply.

She sounds _so_ much like her sister in that moment, but the catlike smile as Roza’s jaw drops is entirely her own.

“Don’t be a coward, Colonel,” Allison says. “I’m not asking you to avert another apocalypse; I’m suggesting that you show my sister just a sliver of vulnerability. You _know_ Ed, in your heart of hearts—she’s blunt, yes, and oblivious, and occasionally downright stupid in her stubbornness, but she’s never cruel. She wouldn’t hurt you. Just _try_.”

It’s funny—depending upon one’s definition of the word, at any rate—that Roza wouldn’t hesitate to put her life in Ed’s hands, but her _heart_ …

Because… what if it… _works_?

That’s a scarier prospect than rejection. What if it’s _wonderful_? What if it’s all hilarious banter and linked arms in winter and held hands and bumped hips and blankets and murmurs and soft kisses in dimly-lit rooms? What if it’s all of the secrets and none of the shame? What if it’s safe and cozy and contented but still _exciting_ , and she can _never_ get enough?

Roza’s not sure she knows how to be happy. She’s not sure she wouldn’t trip over it on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and wake up the next morning to find it shattered on the floor. She’s not sure it wouldn’t change her, at a fundamental level, into someone else.

The coffee is cooling at an alarming rate. Perhaps she’d better have a bit more.

“Do you know,” Allison says as Roza reaches out for the cup, “Sister doesn’t think she’s special.”

Roza’s hand freezes in midair, and her heart nosedives. “Surely—”

Allison’s glare brooks no argument.

Roza abandons the coffee expedition and retreats to the back of her desk chair. “I’ll—ask. I’ll try.”

“She won’t hurt you,” Allison says again, softly. Then she grins. “And if you hurt _her_ , you _will_ be drinking poison. All right, no; it’ll be _much_ worse. I’m extremely creative, and I’ll never be caught.”

Roza really should have burned down Central Command with all of them in it when she had the chance.

“Good afternoon, then, Colonel,” Allison says, hopping up and wobbling her way back to the door. “Enjoy the coffee.”

The door clicks shut.

After a few moments of silence, Rian returns: it’s a characteristic bit of multitasking, meant first to verify that Roza is still alive, and then to revel in her nearly unprecedented speechlessness.

The latter cannot stand. Roza scrounges up the remnants of her voice.

“You are hereby prohibited to spend time with that girl,” she says.

Rian’s eyebrows rise, and he struggles not to smile. “Yes, sir. May I ask why?”

“Because if the two of you met at nine in the morning,” Roza says, “you would have taken over the country over by lunchtime. And that’s not _fair_.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, sir,” Rian says. “We would found our _own_ country, and its infrastructure would be so efficient that everyone would emigrate of their own accord.”

“Where should I take Edwina out to dinner?” Roza asks.

Now it’s Rian’s turn to be speechless, so at least today isn’t a _total_ loss.


End file.
